Annelle K. Gregory Violinist

American violinist Annelle Kazumi Gregory is a laureate of international competitions, concert soloist, and recording artist. She is the First Prize & Audience Choice Award winner of the 2017 National Sphinx Competition and a Laureate of the 2013 Stradivarius International Violin Competition.

Annelle is renowned for her work in Russian music, championing forgotten works by great Russian composers through performances and recordings. In 2017, she released the first-ever recording of Rachmaninoff’s complete works for violin and piano with pianist Alexander Sinchuk on Bridge Records, earning international acclaim and radio broadcasts across the United States and Europe. Her most recent album, Russian Music for Solo Violin and Orchestra, recorded with conductor Dmitry Yablonsky and the Kiev Virtuosi Symphony Orchestra, was released by Naxos in 2019.

As a soloist, Annelle has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Nashville Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and the Kyiv Virtuosi, among many others, working alongside such distinguished conductors as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Xian Zhang, JoAnn Falletta, Thomas Wilkins, and Mei-Ann Chen. She has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall and Walt Disney Hall, as well as abroad in Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Guadeloupe. She has been featured by BBC, NPR, KUSC, and WQXR, as well as on German television and PBS.

In 2025, Annelle published her groundbreaking book on music performance and practice, How to Perform With 100% Accuracy and Spend Less Time Practicing, which became an Amazon #1 New Release in Classical Music within its first month. The book garnered critical acclaim, with The Strad praising it as “a valuable collection of ideas and advice that all performers, particularly string players, are likely to benefit from reading.” Since its publication, Annelle has presented masterclasses on performance etiquette and efficient practicing, along with speaking engagements for the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) and the Music Teachers’ Association of California (MTAC).

After graduating from high school with honors at age 16, Annelle graduated summa cum laude, first in her class, from USC’s Thornton School of Music, where she received departmental honors and became the first music performance major to win the Discovery Scholar Prize. She furthered her studies at the Moscow Conservatory International School for two summers. Her teachers have included Michael and Irina Tseitlin, Glenn Dicterow, and Alexander Kirov. Her distinctions include the 2017 Isaac Stern Award and 2014 Glenn Dicterow Music Scholarship, as well as scholarships from the Musical Merit Foundation and the League of Allied Arts.

Her awards include First Prizes in the 2017 Grand Prize Virtuoso International Competition, 2017 NANM National Strings Competition, 2017 Beverly Hills National Auditions, 2016 American Protégé International Concerto Competition, and 2012 NAACP ACT-SO National Strings Competition. Annelle has appeared as a featured soloist at the 2018 Kiev Conservatory International Easter Festival, on the 2017–18 Sphinx Virtuosi national tours, and at the 2016 iPalpiti Festival of International Laureates; in 2013, she opened for the Moscow Ballet, performing a solo with the company’s principal ballerina. She serves on the faculty of the annual Burgos International Music Festival in Spain and the International Academy of Music; is a board member of the Musical Merit Foundation, an ambassador for the Symphonina Foundation, co-host of the Symphonina Podcast, and chair of the San Diego MTAC Concerto Competition.

A multi-instrumentalist from a young age, Annelle also plays viola, piano, guitar, bass guitar, drumset, and koto. She has performed tap, jazz, flamenco, and Japanese classical dance, and was formerly a model for clothing brand MyKnitEver. In her spare time, she enjoys reading 100+ books a year, cooking, producing music videos for her one-man rock band Starrider, and cake decorating.